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WILKES-BARRE — The concerns: Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas has increased methane in the atmosphere, polluted water and may be responsible for seismic activity, among other things.
The pluses: It has reduced energy costs, created jobs, provided cleaner energy than the coal it often replaces in electricity plants and even made millionaires out of property owners who, until they leased land to gas drillers, were struggling to survive. As to the problems, technology and some added regulation could fix most of them.
Those were the basic conclusions of four panelists who pitched their opinions, laced with facts, during a presentation called “Frack It Or Leave It” at Wilkes University Thursday afternoon.
In Pennsylvania, the industry has gone largely unregulated, Philadelphia Inquirer journalist Andrew Maykuth said, a situation that has begun to change slowly in recent years as it became clearer some environmental problems were stemming from fracking.
“In 2009 when public water along the Monongahela water system started tasting salty,” Maykuth said, “that’s when the state tried to move into action.”
Part of the problem had been that wastewater from fracking, which is mostly brine but includes some chemicals and a bit of radioactivity, was simply dumped into municipal water treatment plants where “it wasn’t so much treated as diluted.”
When the industry started injecting the waste water into the ground, that apparently caused seismic activity in some places. And the level of methane in Pennsylvania’s air has increased sharply in the last 10 years, which many believe is the result of leakage from fracking wells because the rules are lax on well construction.
Syracuse University Associate Professor of Political Science Sarah Pralle discussed the events that led up to New York State banning fracking, beginning with a moratorium that was supposed to end in 2011 while the benefits and risks were reviewed.
She suggested the lack of federal regulation may have spurred mobilization of opponents who helped turn the moratorium into a ban. It may also have helped that the moratorium went well past its anticipated deadline.
“As the moratorium drew out, a lot of lease agreements expired, and the gas industry just left the state” Pralle said. “That changes the power dynamic in the debate.”
Michael Helbing, an attorney with the advocacy group PennFuture, raised the issue of habitat displacement, as land is cleared and forests split by pipelines, forcing animals who prefer life deeper in the woods to try to adapt to living on what has suddenly become a forest edge.
Helbing called for increased funding to the state Department of Environmental Protection to better police the industry, and for a comprehensive study of the benefits and impact of fracking in the state.
Only attorney Lee Piatt from Rosenn Jenkins and Greenwald spoke in full support of fracking, acknowledging some of the risks but insisting they can be controlled through better technology, as well as better regulation.
He noted land leases with gas companies have turned struggling rural families into millionaires, and that more competition, not less, will ultimately lead to cleaner energy all around.
“Problems are solved in stages and through technological improvements,” Piatt suggested. “I think improvements will be encouraged if we permit (fracking) to continue.”
